


Everything For You

by imnotmadeofeyes



Series: A Tale Of Teenage Love [2]
Category: All Time Low, Bandom
Genre: Alex is with Tay, Angst, Bad break-up, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jack is in love, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, no happy ending to the love story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-31
Updated: 2015-01-31
Packaged: 2018-03-09 20:53:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3264056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imnotmadeofeyes/pseuds/imnotmadeofeyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Alex needs Jack, Jack is there for him - no matter what happened before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything For You

**Author's Note:**

> Yay, I wrote a sequel to "Find Your Happiness"! This is not inspired by scenes from my life that fuck me up, but it's a scene that is connected back to what happened in December, something that I had to get out of my head to get the fuck over it. Guess what's not working? Anyways, I hope you enjoy it. Be warned - still no happy ending for their love! Dunno if I'll ever write a third part.

It's the morning after Jack dropped off Alex on their usual spot so Tay could pick him up when he got the message. When his phone buzzed, he scrambled to get it – of course he did, because Alex was about the only person to text him, and he was always excited to hear from his best friend. And the message that lit up his screen really was from Alex.

_I'm with her now._

Such a simple message. Such a simple way to rip Jack's heart to shreds.

*

Jack hadn't heard from Alex in three weeks an four days – the last message had been that he wouldn't be coming out because he was at Tay's. Before, Jack and Alex had been barely separable for months, met up weekly, texted every day. Now it's almost been a month since Jack had seen him and even in the previous weeks to that he'd seen him a total of four times. It was April now, just before the finals started.

Jack would love to say he was over him. He'd taken a step back from his best mate to leave his new relationship space. He didn't want to stop anything from happening, because he hadn't seen Alex happier in a long time. But he wasn't. Sometimes he evolved crushes on other people, even went on a date with that guy from his Spanish class, Andrew. But when he saw a clock on 11:11, he still wished for Alex to be happy, and sometimes he still cried himself to sleep because he missed him, missed him so much it ripped his heart right out of his chest.

He loved him still, and so he stayed away. He doubted that Alex missed him, anyways. That's why he hadn't seen the older boy in that long a time, and he told himself every day that it was better that way, even though he opened up his contact daily, thumbs hovering over the keyboard, itching to write a message. He never did.

And then Alex showed up on his doorstep. It was a rainy evening, and Jack had resigned himself to watching some Misfits, because he never went out Friday evenings anymore. That time had long since been over. His mum wasn't supposed to show up until hours later, so he startled when the doorbell rang, but still went to open the door. The sight that trudged up the stairs to his apartment was heart-wrenching; he knew that something was wrong the moment he spotted him.

Alex was drenched from the rain, his shoulders were slumped and his face blank – blanker than Jack had seen it in a long, long time. Their eyes met as Alex rounded the last corner, and it felt a bit like someone had knocked the air from Jack's lungs. Someone had broken his boy.

"Jack" Alex breathed – it wasn't more, just an exhale that formed the sounds of his name.

Jack rushed to collect Alex in his arms before the boy collapsed, pressed him close and hugged him tight. "Alex. What's wrong? What happened?" But he didn't get an answer. Alex just clung to him like a lifeline, cold nose pressed into Jack's shoulder, whole frame shaking. He appeared a lot smaller than he really was, and it broke Jack's heart.

"Come on in, you're freezing" Jack murmured softly, but made no move to let go of Alex. "Let's get you into some dry clothes and then you tell me what happened." Alex just nodded meekly, and Jack walked them into his room carefully, sat his best friend – which Alex still was because Jack trusted nobody else like he trusted him – down on the bed and only then disentangled himself from Alex' arms.

"Just a sec"

He got him dry clothes – fluffy socks, sweatpants and a faded out t-shirt that was just a little small on Jack and therefore should fit Alex – and grabbed a towel, but when he turned around to face Alex again, the boy sat just like Jack had left him a minute ago, eyes fixed on the floor in front of him. Jack stepped up to the boy, ran his hand through the soft, wet brown strands. "Let me take care of you" he said, then, and so it started.

Alex was pliant and did everything Jack instructed him to do – lift his arms to shrug off the soaked coat and the wet crewneck, lift his feet so Jack could pull off his shoes and socks, stand up so Jack could pull down his wet jeans. Then, Jack rubbed his cold skin over with a towel, once, so no dampness was left on his sin, before he dressed him again – first the socks, then the sweatpants, and finally the t-shirt. Alex was still shivering though, and Jack doubted that it was from the cold alone. Still, he wrapped him in his blanket, and then sat behind him so he could rub his hair with the towel. Alex leaned on Jack heavily, and when Jack was done, he turned so he could curl up in Jack's chest, fists closed around Jacks sweatshirt. And so Jack held him tightly again, pressed kisses to his head and temple from time to time. He had no clue how much time passed, but it didn't matter.

He'd let Alex go so he could be happy, lost sight of him, and when he got him back somebody had broken him all over again.

"She broke up with me, Jack"

The words were a broken whisper, but they still fuelled the burning anger inside of Jack. He had believed that Tay was good for Alex – he'd seen them together a couple of times, and they had looked at each other like nothing else existed. They were a sickeningly cute couple, and the only annoying thing about them had been that they couldn't be separated and that they had to kiss every forty seconds.

"Shit, Lex. What happened?"

"She – she said my-my heart wasn't in it a-anymore" That's when the tears started. No matter what shit had been going down, Jack had never seen Alex cry. "I-I loved her Jack, so much. A-and she said that-th-hat – oh god!" He interrupted himself to cry more, soak Jack's top with it, and Jack was left to hold him, rock him from side to side ever so gently, fighting his urge to cry right with his best friend. He had the strong urge to drive to Tay's and scratch her eyeballs out, but he guessed than Alex would never speak to him ever again.

"It'll be okay. I'm here now, Lexy, I'm here. Shh, darling, you're okay."

It took a long time until Alex stopped crying and then even longer until he regained control of his breathing. "When she did that", he whispered eventually, "All I could concentrate on was that I had to get to you. I treated you like shit these past weeks, but you – Jack, you."

Jack pressed his lips to the top of Alex' head yet again. His heart roared in his chest, and he had to bite back tears yet again because of the sharp, white-hot pain stabbing through his ribcage. "It's good you came here. I told you I'd always look after you."

Alex shifted a bit, got a bit more comfortable against Jack. "I'm sorry we talked so little the past weeks."

"Don't worry about it" Jack replied, even though these were exactly the words he'd wanted to hear. Never had he wanted to hear the words in this context. He didn't want to have to put Alex back together yet again, teaching him again that life was worth it even when you were alone, teaching him again that he was gorgeous and worth it and that he was worth it as well.

"I love you, Jacky" Alex murmured.

"Love you too, dumbass" Jack smiled sadly, though Alex couldn't see it. "How about we catch some sleep now, okay?" And so they laid down and Jack held Alex in his arms the way he had before, the way he had dreamed of all these weeks ever since he noticed his crush on the older boy. Alex still shook or tensed up from time to time, sometimes he sniffled softly. Jack was wide awake still, listened to Alex' breathing, felt his heartbeat, carded his fingers through the fluffy caramel locks on top of Alex' head again and again, until he finally fell asleep.

Only then Jack could relax enough to think about all this. Alex came to him. When he hurt, when he needed someone to look out for him, he came to Jack. It didn't matter that he hadn't heard from him in weeks prior to that night, it didn't matter that Jack was still oh so madly in love with that boy: as long as Alex needed him, Jack would be right here.

He would always be. He just wanted to make sure Alex was alright, he just wanted to make sure he was happy. And when Alex was only happy with other people – girls, most of all –, then Jack was okay with that, as long as he was happy. And when it meant standing on the sidelines and just waiting for Alex to need him yet again, it was alright – as long as he was still allowed to play at least some part in Alex' life, he would endure anything.

Jack was close to dozing off, exhausted from thinking about everything and from worrying about Alex, when his mum came home. As soon as she cracked the door open, Jack motioned for her to be quiet. The woman looked at her son incredulously – and of course she recognized the boy her son was so deeply in love with. And of course she knew, because Jack trusted her and because he couldn't keep any secrets from his mum.

"What?" she whispered.

"Bad break-up. I'll tell you tomorrow, alright?" he whispered back, careful not to wake Alex. He seemed to have finally calmed down a bit, and looked so peaceful with his hands curled in front of his chest, just so holding onto Jack's shirt, and his nose buried in Jack's chest.

Joyce seemed to hesitate for a second, then she smiled slightly, nodded and noiselessly closed the door. The room was bathed in darkness yet again, and Jack sighed. It was to be a long night.

But it was Alex – and for Alex, he'd do everything.


End file.
